Mastering the Art of Letting Go: Finding Clarity in Business with Joe Fier

Hey, what's happening? It's Joe Fear and this episode I want to talk about. Probably, probably one of the most difficult things in business, which is figuring out how the hell to let go and let go and let some amazing things happen in your business and these opportunities that can walk into your life when you know where you're headed or at least if you have a decent idea. A little North Star, a little bit of clarity behind what you're doing in your day to day. But then knowing this, maybe not balance, but almost a harmony of how you can have a mixture of your vision and then also letting life in and letting others come in to your life and bring opportunities that align with where you want to head. Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic Hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy. Hey, what's happening? You know it, we all know it. 2023 is almost gone. Poof. 2024 is coming around the corner, but we still have Q4 to make the most of it. So that's why the new HubSpot sales hub is here to help you and your team and it's pretty epic. So this thing helps you along the whole customer journey. It ties everybody on your team together, your workflows, your operations, making sure no one's missing anything so you can deliver a better experience, a thing to your customers, but also get more revenue for your business. Let's close out the year strong. This is going to help you do it. So they also have a new conversational AI powered platform called Chat Spot. This thing is going to help you basically be your assistant to craft emails, different copy that you want to write outline posts and so many other ways and things that would take up hours of your time. Well, times have changed. You don't have to do that anymore. This thing also has 1400 integrations, which I'm sure it's going to work in your business. So tons of features, ways to get creative in how to use this. So right now, at the end of this year, we want to make sure that you're making the most of it. So go make the switch to HubSpot Sales Hub over at HubSpot.com sales. So one of the biggest problems that I've faced over the years is something that I think most entrepreneurs face is not having a clear vision, a North Star. In a. In a way, you really want to orient yourself so that the things that come across to you, you know, an email or networking opportunity, someone gets connected to you, you get this opportunity to go speak or be in a podcast or whatever it might be. These things sometimes are great, but sometimes they can kind of take you off course a little bit. Has that happened to you? I mean, I'm just assuming it has. If you're putting yourself out there, you inherently get more things showing up at your doorstep in ways that people might want to collaborate with you. You know, I talk about podcasting a lot as being this ultimate networking tool. And everyone with a podcast that I chat with, especially if they've done the work, you know, let's call it 50 episodes, a hundred episodes in, they say all the same things. They're. They're starting to get inbound. There's people that want to connect and be a guest on their podc, because that's a virtual stage. And, you know, they've kind of proven themselves as a credible one. And very quickly, this is just one example, but very quickly, you have to start to filter and really understand, okay, so who am I going to curate for my podcast? I'm just using podcast as an example, but you can apply this anywhere. It's like, who do you let into your sacred space onto your own personal stage? Even if that stage is, you know, your team or. Or your blog or, you know, your YouTube channel, your whatever that you kind of control, but you want to keep a focus. And. And that goes back to the vision and this North Star. And I say this, and I. And I want to talk about this in the. In the context of my podcast and give you kind of a glimmer of what's been going down, because I have a big announcement of a part that I'll talk about on this podcast. You might have already kind of seen some hints of it, and there's a reason why I did this partnership, and it's one that will help grow the North Star and this vision that I have for this podcast and also tell you that it hasn't always been a clear vision. It's changed over the years with this podcast, Hustle and Flowchart. It's changed so many times, you know, in terms of the vision.

Seven, eight, nine, ten times maybe over the last seven years. It's almost what, 550 episodes in now. And I feel like at this point I have a pretty dang good vision, and that is to help entrepreneurs and business owners like yourself to express themselves in a way and then package that up in a way where you can now expand your own voice or your written text, whatever that expression is, in your own unique way, unfiltered, in a way that speaks to you and your innate abilities and the thing that fuels you in your life. I talk about that as a theme of this show. It's business I see as a fuel for your life that attracts the right people in the right people who will support you, your mission, and ultimately do business with you. Revenue comes in from people that you, you genuinely. Or people they connect with you, and then vice versa. Of course, those are your people. And that's a network effect. There's this flywheel. I talk about this a lot with the podcast being right in the middle. This is what I found, is that if you do it properly, this becomes a networking machine that the right people find you because you're putting out these, these types of content, you know, these episodes out into the world. This is owned media. This is now stuff that the world can't take away, a podcast, as long as it's published and distributed out there. Sure, it's going on platforms where you don't necessarily control those things, but now you're pushing things out there in the world for people to discover you. And it's completely on you to do that. You. And there's an, there's a thing that stops us from expressing ourselves. And it's kind of unfortunate, especially as business owners. There's, there's things that hold us back. We don't need to go all the way down that right now. But I'll just say my, the breakthroughs I've had over the last seven years, it's been like this onion peeling back is not only figuring out what is the vision that I can see for years to come and where I want to take things, but also having the courage and, and the, I guess, awareness to strip back some of the, you know, the mask that might be filtering some of that, that true message out there that. And, or it could be, hey, I had a co host, a business partner for so many years. Matt Wolf, who, you know, we had, we're different humans and that made a whole different dynamic of this podcast and a business. Obviously we aligned on visions, but also visions change as we progress in life. Different seasons. I mean, that's, you see that in, in relationships across the board. And quick shout out to Matt Wolf. He's rocking and rolling over at future tools IO and you can check him out on YouTube if you just check out Matt Wolf. He's pretty easy to find and he's a great buddy of mine. He's a brother from another mother. I'm going to see him tomorrow at the time of this recording. So it's, it's, you know, it changes when you have someone else or when you start to collaborate with other people, co create, which is all great, but at the same time to have a personal vision but also figure out like, okay, how are you going to get this thing done? And how, how do you actually express in a way that's not going to have the straight up influence, or maybe you have fear of expressing from some judgment from the outside when knowing that when you express yourself in the most genuine, authentic way, the right people are going to show up at your doorstep. They're going to start sharing your podcast subscribing, hitting the review button. Please do that, by the way. Or on YouTube, wherever you're at right now, the right people start connecting with this because that's when you can build your true fans. Kevin Kelly talks about it with a thousand true fans. What? Derek Sivers. There's a awesome video. I'll try to find it and put it in the show. Notes is, you know, he, he showed how a, a movement is started and really it's just the first, what one or two people kind of start this, this momentum and then all of a sudden it becomes, it starts building. He actually showed it was this old video, probably from like early 2000s. One person starting to dance at a festival and just by himself, someone, you know, everyone else is just hanging out on this lawn and then a second person jumps in and then sooner or later a third person, fourth person, fifth person, and they start kind of compiling and that flywheel starts to grow and it's a perfect representation of what a movement looks like. When you're starting a movement, you're literally the crazy one. Putting yourself out there in front of the microphone, in front of the camera and publishing, that's the key thing. And you could do that without a vision, but at the same time that could turn things into like a wavy Road, which, that is what life is. But at the same time, it can lead to not consistency, you know, like drop in the consistency, which, the other piece of this, when you figure out your vision, when you figure out your voice where you're not, you know, influenced from the outside so much, where you stop talking now you can show up consistently. And that's a big takeaway for me, this show and what's ultimately developed into some really cool partnerships. But the thing is to be consistent, because was it. Alex Armozi talks about it all the time. He has a great podcast called the Game. And it's literally what business is. It's what life is. Life and business, they're hard, they're tough. But at the same time, if you build it into a game, if you see it as a game and you want to show up and genuinely attract and work with people or help people who are connecting with your expression, with your vision, then it starts to feel like a game. And typically the number one rule in the game is don't die or don't burn out or don't fall off a cliff. You know, don't get burned up by some, you know, fireball in Mario or something. I don't know. I'm envisioning those things that are cycling around. You have to, like, jump through. But the point is don't, don't stall out, don't stop. Stay in the game. Longer and wiser words I don't think have ever been spoken, because once you're out of the game, you're done. Or you have to start from something from scratch, from dust, from, or maybe don't get. You're not able to. The momentum stops. It's, it's, it's something that's probably the toughest part of business is sustaining your practice, whatever that is. And for me, this podcast, Hustle and flowchart, it's what, seven years? Almost seven years. About 550 episodes in. It's a top 1% rated podcast, what, 1.7 ish million downloads. It's now expanding into other parts. I mean, do I want to scale this thing? Yes. There's a reason why I just did a partnership. And, and that partnership would not have come through or even developed if it weren't for establishing great connections over the, the, the years through this podcast, through networking, through, helping, through, expressing. And so the balance of, you know, North Star expressing and then also consistency. But then the other piece is letting go and letting things just kind of happen and not trying to control everything. You know, I talk about it. We're all, or you know, we're drivers, people in business, us entrepreneurs and business owners, we just have this interesting go mode that is hard to stop. And you know, it's, it's great, but it can lead to burnout. It can lead to all sorts of stressors and dark times. I mean, I know I've had them, I've talked about them a lot on this podcast, you know, from losing family members in tragic ways, unexpected ways, having kids, I mean, I'm about to have a second daughter. And these are all, there's low moments and then very high moments. But at the same time, you know, I had a guest, Gregory shepherd, on who incredible investor and businessman he talks about, you know, the key is to be more content. And it's almost like the line between the peaks and the valleys. And finding that kind of middle space allows us to now show up in situations and ride the wave a little better or a little, a little easier, with more grace and see things for what they really are and not get caught up in the emotions of things and not saying to take emotion out of it, but to have clear eyes and to see things for what they really are. And at least from my experience, when you do that, when you learn to let go and when you trust yourself, your intuition, your gut, maybe get outta your brain and more into your body, there's tools that you can do this. One of em is John Assaraf's Inner Size. It's an, an app that you can get on Android or Apple. And it's incredible. It's, you know, there's things like affirmations, there's meditations, there's ways to look at your mental patterns and rewire things in a way that chills it out a little bit or builds you up, whatever you're looking for. That's just a tool randomly popped into my mind here. And he's coming out on the episode or on the podcast very soon. And I'm just gonna say things like that. Self work, journaling, waking up early and checking in with accountability buddies. I have some, I'll just give another shout out. Trevor Turnbull, Mike Prince, they've been on the podcast, they run up Extremely conscious. Com and they're running a new cohort. Go check them out if you're interested. But this is a small group that basically we're accountability buddies. We, we check in with each other and with like 10 to 12 different micro actions every single day to make sure that we're showing up physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually sound and making sure that, you know, just checking boxes, but making sure that it aligns with where we want to go in life. So I say all this because the it. It's brought me incredible opportunities to scale what I'm doing here, and it's forcing me to show up better and, and focus on things that I haven't really focused on as much. So, you know, this year has been a year of a lot of systems, a lot of dialing in the mission and the vision, getting clarity, reconnecting with so many people. You know, I talked about there's some shifts that happened the last few years. The fact that I went solo in business and on the podcast, things shifted and, and obviously the times in the world have shifted. Technology with AI and all these things have shifted as well. So that's had me rethink how I approach this and what I communicate these messages to you. So thinking about all of this, I've. I've allowed things to come up into my world now that are now allowing me to expand this expression. So I'm. I'm going to drop a little ad right here that's actually going to tell you exactly what is going down. And don't Worry, it's like 30 seconds or something. And then after that, I'm going to tell you a little bit more of why I did what I did. Big announcement here. The Hustle and Flowchart podcast is now the newest podcast on the HubSpot Podcast Network. They're the audio destination for business professionals. It's exactly why I joined the network to expand what we've been doing here. Making business the fuel for your life, not the stressor or the burnout. We want to build fun and make business a big part of who we are and our expression out to others. So you're going to expect a lot more. More curated guests and that sync up with this mission. Also more topics and episodes from me. And I want you to keep listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Go check out other shows on the HubSpot podcast network@HubSpot.com podcast network. All right, so I'm a part of HubSpot's podcast network, and it's pretty cool. It's. It's a little wild because, I mean, there's not many podcasts on this network and there's some. There's some pretty, Pretty awesome ones. Check it out. You know, the URL was HubSpot.com podcast network and go peruse a little bit yourself. But I won't belabor that anymore. Right now. I want to talk about more of the why and how something like this is now going to scale and elevate what I'm doing. So, you know, when it comes to when HubSpot, I started these conversations and learned a little bit more. And then we started talking about how to collaborate here. I saw an opportunity to expand on the message that I'm putting out into the world and also clarifying this message so it can connect with business owners in a way that supports them further. Because, you know, we talked about the mental game. There's a physical game, there's a whole like spiritual kind of game when it comes to business. And it's all integrated. You know, this is just this wild world we live in and, and here we are as humans trying to navigate this thing. And now with the introduction of this, all this emerging technology, AI and everything else that's around in the world, there's a lot of stressors in the world too. How do we keep focus and keep ourselves basically content? You know, back to that concept of weathering the storms and knowing that all of this stuff is happening. I wanted to partner up with a network or a company with reach, but also a focus of greatness and one that I can expand this to others and create more of this ripple effect. You know, I'm a, I'm a true believer that the podcast, especially how I've run it, and this is how I teach a lot of people how a podcast can be the hub of all of your marketing. As long as your voice, you know, you're expressing yourself, could be audio, video, ideally both. You can now engineer the podcast and this content you're creating one time and it turns into everything, you know, the social clips, it turns into a networking opportunity with people and they can become your JV partners, your, your business partners. It becomes, you know, your, your media that you're owning, but also becomes earned media. That's some of the most valuable PR that you can get and you don't really need to buy it. That's the beautiful thing is you're creating it, starting it with your own podcast. You can also leverage other podcasts and then kind of do something similar where you don't have to create it all yourself, but it's not so much owned media at that point, but the point is you have so much opportunity to leverage the world when you own some media. And that's why I love podcasting, that's why I teach this. And then really that's where things can expand and grow in some wild, interesting ways. And Other people will start to notice you. If you're showing up consistently, you're trusting, you have a vision that honestly a lot of people can connect with. And all it takes is one. You know, it's back to Derek Sivers in that video, which I'll link up, is the one person starts dancing a little crazy on the hill. That's me, the podcast or you. And then you have someone else that comes and attaches to you. Maybe it's someone like a podcast producer or someone that just really loves what you're doing and shouts you out all the time. You know, it could be a super fan. I've definitely had and have a lot of those. And these evangelists can start attracting more and then eventually, boom, an opportunity like HubSpot pops up and boom, I'm like, oh wow, there's lots of people, there's millions of people in that audience and a brand now that like, okay, now it can champion this message I've been working on for seven plus years and showing up consistently and seeing that opportunity and now getting that opportunity, I had to jump in all in. And it goes to understanding all this, but also letting go. And that's been the hardest part in, in life, in business. That was part of this when I, when I joined HubSpot and their podcast network is it's honestly letting go and seeing, okay, where does this go? Where does it take me? Where does it take you? And I think it's going to be to greatness. I think it's going to share, it's going to get me to share so much more. It's going to have me curate more guests that are aligned with this vision. And for you, these solos are going to start. There's going to be more episodes for me solo talking to you about what's going down and some of the things, the inner working, some strategies and case studies. There's a lot I have planned and I'm excited to share this with you and I wanted to put this out there to not only highlight some of the things that I've struggled with, that I know a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners do, but also share where a vision can go when you're co creating with others who attach to it and believe in you and honestly trust you. So that's what I got right now. And I would love to hear back from you and hear what, what you learned in this and feel free to comment below in YouTube if you're here or if it's an audio and make sure to hit subscribe, hit the like button and push this out and tell me genuinely what you're thinking and how this relates to what you got going on. And also I have some amazing things coming up very soon here. There's a new Mastermind rolling out for podcasting with business podcasters specifically focused on and that's something I'm collaborating with PodFest and that's actually happening. There's an in person element in January and then also a longer term annual virtual mastermind and inner circle group. Just a small group, but I would love to have you in there if you are a podcaster in business. Go reach out to me at joe@hustleandflowchart.com or stalk me down on one of the social media networks. Joe Fear J O E F I E R G gets to me and that'll get me on the socials because that's somewhere I haven't totally been all the time. I've been honestly working in this thing. So much so I'm excited to finally release this out there and to tell you about all these cool things that have been happening and I hope you continue on the journey. Share this with your friends, find another entrepreneur business buddy, share this episode with them and anything you could do to spread the love. I appreciate you so very much and I'll be back at you with another one very soon. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Bye.